Finding a new American Dream

by Cindee Karns

I’m one of the last baby boomers, born in 1959 to 2^nd generation Americans, who continue to have strong ties to our German heritage.  However, my parents, just like everyone else in America,  totally embraced the new post WWII American values of industry, medicine, machines, and, well….corporations.  Life was supposed to get better and if they bought into the American Dream, their children would have it even better than they did.  It was amazing to them all of the modern conveniences they had, compared to what they had as kids.  Electricity whenever they wanted it.  No more trips out to the outhouse.  No wood stoves.  No butchering their own chickens.  A vacuum cleaner?  Really?  My grandparents and my parents rode the wave of the oil era, with a belief that things could only get better.  The wave made the American Dream a reality for them and they assumed it would only get better for their children.

My grandfather Plucker's first car

Indeed I was brought up with those values, that if you work hard like my immigrant great grandparents, grandparents, and parents to get all the newest stuff that belonged in the Dream, I too could live beyond my wildest imagination, with things to make my life easier and easier.  I watched the Jetson’s every Saturday morning to remind me that the dream of the future was true.  As I got older and watched Star Trek, the dream of the future continued.  There was absolutely no realization that the American Dream was held up by the stilts of big oil. 

My dad's first car

Yes, there was a hiccup in 1976.  Our family was on a road trip through the Lower 48, with a bumper sticker on our car that read, “Support the Alaska Pipeline.”  Ironically we had to wait in line at gas stations for gas.  My dad would always get out of the car and talk to anyone he could about why we needed the pipeline.  And sure enough, the pipeline was built and our worries were over-----just a slight wobble and the Dream was off and running again.

The story of the dream was quite compelling.  I became a History teacher and told the story over and over again to 8^th graders.  My year always began with having each student tell the story of how their ancestors arrived in this country---even if that story was 10,000 years ago or on a slave ship.  The year always ended with having each student tell how he/she would continue the dream---how he/she would make the country become a better place. 

Our cabin near Chena Hot Springs

As a teacher I always did the projects with the students.  My year always started with the same story of my great grandparents leaving the old county and arriving in South Dakota, but every year I would change the story about how I could make the country a better place. Maybe it was the cabin in the woods our family would visit every summer, maybe it was re-reading Thoreau, or it might have been The Universe Story by Brian Swimme, that made me redefine my story and look at the world differently.  Maybe it was always inside of me.  Whatever the trigger, I began trying to figure out how I could get out of the American Dream of buying stuff and start a new dream of living simply.  It’s really hard to wake up and change your own story---the story we’ve all been immersed in.   

Now the Dream is getting unsteady across the country, the stilts are wobbling and people are noticing things aren’t quite so smooth.  Many can see that we, as a country, are on unstable ground and it wouldn’t take much to kick one of the stilts out from under us.  Walden Pond is looking more and more like a better story---a better American Dream, but how do we get there from here?  That indeed is the question.